More Quantitative Easing Will Threaten the Dollar and Western Economies

The U.S. economy can, at best, be described as in an “L”-shaped recovery. It is anemic, faced with unyieldingly high unemployment and overburdened with debt, but worst of all, the average consumer that has little to no confidence in the economy or housing for the next couple of years.

The Fed Chairman, Mr. Ben S. Bernanke tells us the future of the U.S. economy is “unusually uncertain”, sapping confidence further. In such a climate a slight push to the negative will see the economy slip back into a recession. Like, ‘depression’, ‘recession’ has become an unacceptable word, because its use would drain confidence even more heavily. The housing market is already tipping into another negative slide with new house sales falling and mortgage rates at record lows. What can be done? We, like most other qualified commentators, free of political bias, see more quantitative easing as being unavoidable within three months, if the bad news continues. But this time, we have to ask, can it be managed without frightening side effects?

The U.S. Debt Crisis
Forty-eight U.S. states will be in deficit this year and the combined shortfall will probably exceed $300 billion. That puts Greece’s expected 2010 budget shortfall of around $28 billion and the Eurozone crisis into perspective. Greece’s shortfall is put at around 13.6% of G.D.P., whereas there are a good number of U.S. states anticipating deficits of more than 20% this year, including some, like California [that has already declared an emergency], New York, Florida and Illinois, with far bigger economies than Spain, Greece and Portugal lumped together. There are around a dozen U.S. states with bigger economies than Greece and most of these anticipate 2010 deficits at this kind of level! The result is going to have to be massive Federal Government bailouts in the midst of quantitative easing.